Because it matters
by soavezefiretto
Summary: More than a drabble, less than a story. Sort of a warm up. Chakotay POV after telling kathryn he's with Seven. PLEASE R&R!!!!


Disclaimer: Paramount and TTPTB own Star Trek, Voyager, Captain Janeway and Chakotay. Sometimes I feel even grateful. Outrage can be very inspiring too...  
  
The thing about the loving ashes I stole from the spanish poet Quevedo, who certainly knew about love, and wrote one of the most beautiful poems about it: "...polvo seré, mas polvo enamorado."  
  
The ending line I stole from a letter F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote to his wife.  
  
Comment: More than a drabble, and less than a story. Is he actually talking to her, is he just musing, is this a personal log entry? I don't know. I am planning on writing the post-Endgame-fix-the-damn-C/7-thing-story every J/Cer HAS to write, and this is sort of a warm up...   
  
  
  
Because it matters  
by  
Miranda  
  
  
  
I'm sorry, my love.  
  
I saw it in your face when I told you. I never thought I would be the one to cause you such pain. But by then it was too late.  
  
You see, Kathryn, so many things you taught me, and the first and most important was: HOLD ON. IT MATTERS. What matters? Everything. Life. Love. Friendship. Small things, like Naomi's smile when I tell her she looks beautiful in her new dress. Like making Neelix feel good about a new recipe, even if I hated it. Maybe the small things matter most of all.  
  
I don't know how to explain this to you... I suppose the best would be to begin at the very beginning: the moment you beamed me aboard Voyager that first time. Gods, I remember that so clearly! Your ship was falling apart around you, half of your crew was dead, you were roughly a hundred years from home and under attack, by whom or why, you didn't know. And yet, there was not a hint of despair in the eyes that met mine. There was defiance, there was stubbornness, there was caution and worry, there was cunning and wit, there was a deeprooted sense of duty, a keen curiosity and an indomitable will, but, above all, there was life. It radiated from you, and it struck me like a shockwave: you were alive, and alive you intended to stay.   
  
This insight didn't come to me in so many words, of course. But I did realize that something had hit me, and it had thrown me much, much farther away than 70,000 light-years from home.  
  
Because you see, Kathryn, my love, I didn't know then why I was alive. A fighter for liberty, preaching high principles of justice, when I opened my eyes in the morning, I couldn't find a reason not to shut them again - forever. Do you remember the legend of the angry warrior? Well, it was true, and it still is. From the moment I first laid eyes on you, YOU were the reason. Not freedom, not the ship or the crew, not getting home - you. And yes, I did find peace.  
  
For a while. At first I was content in this miracle that had happened to me, this miracle that was you. Just seeing you every day, hearing you, standing beside you on the bridge was enough, more than enough, it was so much joy that I thought it must gush out of me, that I must burn up and fall to ashes, and even my ashes must love you.  
  
But lasting content is not in human nature, or at least not in mine, and even if the eagle must know when to sleep, doesn't mean he will, right? Love is never pure. There is desire, there is naked need, there is pain. There are tears not cried, hands not taken, lips not kissed. There are unspoken words that hurt so much, my love.  
  
Had I been my old self, I would have accepted that fate. I should have accepted that it was natural for me to suffer, to long always for something I could not have, to hope always to reach the cold, distant stars. (Although there was a time - do you remember? - when the stars seemed not so distant, when I touched the stars and was touched by them, and they were not cold, but warm and soft...)  
  
But it was you who changed me, Kathryn, it was you who taught me that every life, even mine, is worth living, and that in every being, even in me, there is something worth being given. That was your gift to me, Kathryn, but mine you wouldn't take. So I am giving it to someone else: because she wants it, because she needs it, because she didn't ask for it. Because she talks to me, because she takes my hand, because she kisses me. I will never love her as I love you, but I will love her the best I can, because she lets me, and she wants me to.  
  
Because it matters.  
  
So this will be my life. Goodbye, my darling, my darling. 


End file.
